Changes

*Dubrovnik-Ragusa

*Dubrovnik-Ragusa

They had Italian communities in a dominant position and a cosmopolitan population (of Croatian, Serbian, Albanian, Greek &  Jewish origin). Everybody spoke Italian and Venetian dialect, the “lingua franca” of the time. Helped by the Austrian government (then all Eastern Adriatic coastline was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire), Croatians launched a political campaign against the “Italian Dalmatia” to annex the territory. Since the beginning it was an integral part of the political national aspirations of Croatians struggling to form their own state. It continued to be so during the turbulent formation of the first, monarchic, Yugoslavia, when Croatia accepted willy-nilly the Serbian domination. The Serbs continued the assault, violent, almost a civil war-against all Dalmatian towns inhabited by ethnic Italians.  

They had Italian communities in a dominant position and a cosmopolitan population (of Croatian, Serbian, Albanian, Greek &  Jewish origin). Everybody spoke Italian and Venetian dialect, the “lingua franca” of the time. Helped by the Austrian government (then all Eastern Adriatic coastline was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire), Croatians launched a political campaign against the “Italian Dalmatia” to annex the territory. Since the beginning it was an integral part of the political national aspirations of Croatians struggling to form their own state. It continued to be so during the turbulent formation of the first, monarchic, Yugoslavia, when Croatia accepted willy-nilly the Serbian domination. The Serbs and the Croatians continued the assault, violent, almost a civil war-against all Dalmatian towns inhabited by ethnic Italians.  

Following a first exodus toward the end of the 1800s, in 1905 in Rome a ''Dalmatian Italian Association'' to help the refugees was founded.  

Following a first exodus toward the end of the 1800s, in 1905 in Rome a ''Dalmatian Italian Association'' to help the refugees was founded.  

Then, after WWI tens of thousands of Dalmatian Italians abandoned their towns and villages in 1920-1930s and settled on Italian territory. During WW2 a third and final exodus: the winning '''Communist''' movement embraced the Croatian’s irredentist cause and included it in its war strategy and national political platform. The consequence was the violent expulsion of 350.000 Italian speaking autochthonous inhabitants from the entire Eastern Adriatic coastline - from the southern Dalmatia to the Istrian peninsula - and the consequential erasing of two millennia of a very rich civilisation. Ethnic cleansing had happened in many parts of Europe in both old and modern times, so the demographic and cultural extirpation of Italian presence in Dalmatia, the Quarnero region and Istria is not really a new phenomena. But this slow, brutal and in 1945 also military operation had an unexpected development, something very peculiar. After erasing almost all the Italian speaking population in Dalmatia proper, without succeeding completely in the Quarner region and Istria, Croatia adapted a new form of genocide: the stealing of the “enemy’s” history in order to obliterate his memory and aggrandize the country.  

Then, after WWI tens of thousands of Dalmatian Italians abandoned their towns and villages in 1920-1930s and settled on Italian territory. During WW2 a third and final exodus: the winning '''Communist''' movement embraced the Croatian’s irredentist cause and included it in its war strategy and national political platform. The consequence was the violent expulsion of 350.000 Italian speaking autochthonous inhabitants from the entire Eastern Adriatic coastline - from the southern Dalmatia to the Istrian peninsula - and the consequential erasing of two millennia of a very rich civilisation. Ethnic cleansing had happened in many parts of Europe in both old and modern times, so the demographic and cultural extirpation of Italian presence in Dalmatia, the Quarnero region and Istria is not really a new phenomena. But this slow, brutal and in 1945 also military operation had an unexpected development, something very peculiar. After erasing almost all the Italian speaking population in Dalmatia proper, without succeeding completely in the Quarner region and Istria, Croatia adapted a new form of genocide: the stealing of the “enemy’s” history in order to obliterate his memory and aggrandize the country.  

Completely ignored in the West, this skulduggery is a new Pandora’s vase “Balkan style“. Sack and misinform. Croatia, a country of about 5 million inhabitants, has “nationalised” the history of her Adriatic coastline, a territory that had never been part of the Slavic hinterland, historically, politically or culturally. In order to totally “Croatianize“ the coastal territories, the country is manipulating their history and striving to “show” the world that Dalmatia, the Quarner region and Istria have “always” been Croatian. There is no actual political contingency to justify this operation: the old Italian irredentism ended up definitely in the dustbin of the history, and no other countries - except for Slovenia - have pressing territorial ambitions toward Croatia. Never methodically investigated, nobody knows how and when these history misappropriations started. In 1858-60 Ivan Kukuljevic Sakcinski, who belonged to Croatian nobility, published his “Slovnik umjetnikah jugoslavenskih”, an encyclopaedic dictionary of Yugoslav artists (then, Croatia was under Hungarian domination and Yugoslavia was still a dream). In this book among Slavic artists you can find the painter Vittore Carpaccio - born in Venice, 1460/65 ca. - 1525/26 ca. - only because Carpaccio used to create religious paintings commissioned by churches in Istrian peninsula and Dalmatia. Kukuljevic Sakcinski, a hot-headed nationalist, “opined” that the artist’s last name derived from a Croatian root: “Krpaci, Skrpaci or Krpatici”.  

Completely ignored in the West, this skulduggery is a new Pandora’s vase “Balkan style“. Sack and misinform. Croatia, a country of about 5 million inhabitants, has “nationalised” the history of her Adriatic coastline, a territory that had never been part of the Slavic hinterland, historically, politically or culturally. In order to totally “Croatianize“ the coastal territories, the country is manipulating their history and striving to “show” the world that Dalmatia, the Quarner region and Istria have “always” been Croatian. There is no actual political contingency to justify this operation: the old Italian irredentism ended up definitely in the dustbin of the history, and no other countries - except for Slovenia - have pressing territorial ambitions toward Croatia. Never methodically investigated, nobody knows how and when these history misappropriations started. In 1858-60 Ivan Kukuljevic Sakcinski, who belonged to Croatian nobility, published his “Slovnik umjetnikah jugoslavenskih”, an encyclopaedic dictionary of Yugoslav artists (then, Croatia was under Hungarian domination and Yugoslavia was still a dream). In this book among Slavic artists you can find the painter Vittore Carpaccio - born in Venice, 1460/65 ca. - 1525/26 ca. - only because Carpaccio used to create religious paintings commissioned by churches in Istrian peninsula and Dalmatia. Kukuljevic Sakcinski, a hot-headed nationalist, “opined” that the artist’s last name derived from a Croatian root: “Krpaci, Skrpaci or Krpatici”.

=== Republic of Ragusa ===

=== Republic of Ragusa ===